1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods of instructing music, specifically to systems and methods of instructing musical literacy and musical performance for stringed instruments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current standard musical notation has incrementally evolved from indicating a small series of notes with extended fingers. As musical theory evolved and western culture explored musical performance there developed a need to indicate a greater variety of notes and timings. Additionally, performers and composers established standard modes of notation to facilitate recording and performing for those having expertise in musical notation. Accordingly, musical notation has become a powerful and useful way to communicate through music. However, this tool has become very difficult for those without expertise to learn.
In particular, musical instrument interfaces are very different from standard musical notation. Accordingly, it is difficult for a new user to draw a correlation between actions performed on the instrument and instructions on a page. This is particularly true for stringed instruments. Stringed instruments generally include an array of strings arranged to allow a user to sound multiple strings at the same time while selecting notes by effectively shortening string length. Further, such strings are generally tuned to provide an overlapping frequency range between strings to facilitate a particular style of play. Even more, in a typical instruction session, a student faces an instructor and watches how the instructor plays. The student must then mentally invert the viewed actions before practicing. Accordingly, a student of stringed instruments faces great difficulties in learning to read music and in learning to play.
More, common methods of instructing musical notation and musical performance typically require a substantial investment in time and effort before substantial results may be observed. Accordingly, many give up learning the language of music. As a result, while music is a natural human expression, few are able to feel confident enough to participate at any level higher than audience.
The difficulties in learning to perform music and read musical notation are many. Indeed, a beginning student may spend considerable time and effort in simply becoming familiar with even the basic motions of playing a musical instrument. Some of these challenges facing beginning students include: learning notes and pitches, hand and fingering positions, and reading and understanding the music and music notation associated with the particular instrument. In many cases, the challenges a beginning student faces may considerably decrease a student's enjoyment and desire to put in the necessary time and effort to become proficient.
Beginning students of stringed musical instruments, such as the violin, guitar, cello, etc., face the additional challenge of coordinating hand positions, pitches, with the printed music. Indeed, even if a student already knows how to read music, they still must learn which finger to use on which string, and in which hand position along the fingerboard they should place their fingers in order to produce the desired notes. Accordingly, many tools have been developed to further automate or otherwise facilitate musical instrument instruction.
In particular, with the advent of the computer, musical notation and other instruction software has been developed with the purpose of simplifying and instructing a person to play and enjoy stringed musical instruments. Electronics and computer-related technologies such as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) have been increasingly applied to musical instrument over the years; thus greatly enhancing the ability for learning, creating, playing, and understanding stringed instrument musical compositions.
Many advances have been made in facilitating musical performance and in learning musical notation. Examples include, but are not limited to, the references described below, which references are incorporated by reference herein:
U.S. Pat. No. 7,174,510, issued to Salter, discloses a musical keyboard is connected to a computer. The computer implements a graphical user interface for teaching users to play the musical instrument. A computer readable music file, such as a MIDI file, is used to drive the creation of game objects that travel from a point of origination along a path toward a key of a virtual keyboard. In one form, when a user presses a key of the musical keyboard within a certain time window of arrival of the game object at the corresponding key of the virtual keyboard, the user is awarded with an audio presentation, a visual presentation and/or with game points.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,119, issued to Mladek, discloses a stringless fret instrument to be played as on a twitch instrument consists of the neck on which there are frets located transversely to a lengthwise axis of the neck, between which there are situated, in rows parallel with the axis of the neck, digital tone push-buttons, and of the body equipped with the management of the synthesizer accompaniment, a loudspeaker and a direct current charger. Above each row of digital tone push-buttons, there is a flexible rope situated in a lengthwise rabbet created in the neck parallel with the lengthwise axis of the neck movable in the direction to digital tone push-buttons, fixed at least on the neck behind the side digital tone push-button. The management of the synthesizer accompaniment consists of three mutually parallel rows of keys each of which consisting of four tone keys.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,026,538, issued to Komano et al., discloses a tone generation apparatus is removably attachable to a plug-in board for generating a tone on the basis of performance information and extending the tone generating function of the tone generation apparatus. Tone color name information and tone color parameter name information of tone color data possessed by the attached plug-in board is stored in a nonvolatile memory. The nonvolatile memory can also store tone color data of a custom voice obtained by editing original tone color data of the plug-in board.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,605,767, issued to Fiks et al., discloses a musical learning system including an instrument and method is disclosed. The instrument is comprised of a rectangularly shaped box designed for convenient handling by an operator in a manner analogous to other musical instruments such as a piano, a guitar, or a horn. Thirteen movable buttons on the top surface of the box sound eight natural notes and five notes of sharps and flats when pressed by the operator, the sounds being produced by either a built-in, acoustic or electronic sound system. Removable attachments having instructive musical notations are temporarily secured above and below the buttons can be used in a predetermined sequence. In addition, in the electronic version, an “octave-up” switch enables an operator to sound a note one or more octaves higher for each of the buttons; and a “mute” bar allows the operator to silence a note being produced, if desired.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,515,211, issued to Umezawa et al, discloses a display device is supplied with basic screen display data for displaying a basic screen including a plurality of chord names to be indicated on the basic screen, and displays the basic screen on the basis of the basic screen display data. For example, the basic screen may be one listing names of chords to be used in a selected music piece in accordance with progression of the selected music piece. There is provided a memory storing, for each chord, playing-manner screen display data for displaying a playing manner screen indicative of a model playing manner corresponding to the chord. On the basis of an instruction by a user, a desired chord is selected from among the plurality of chord names indicated on the basic screen displayed on the display device, and the playing-manner screen display data corresponding to the selected chord name are read out from the memory. The display device displays, along with the basic screen, the playing manner screen indicative of the model playing manner corresponding to the selected chord name on the basis of the playing-manner screen display data read out from the memory. The display device may simultaneously display playing manner screens for a plurality of different chords. Also, the display device may display the playing manner screen in a highlighted fashion.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No.: 2006/0191399, by Miyaki, discloses a fingering guidance image for guiding a fingering upon performing a chord of a stringed instrument to a user is displayed on a display device. This fingering guidance image includes a musical instrument image indicating a guitar, a depressed pointer arranged at the position in the musical instrument image that is depressed upon performing a chord and a fingering image indicating fingers in the form of performing a chord, among which the fingering image is made to be a transmitting image.
Many inventions heretofore known suffer from a number of disadvantages which include: difficulty of use, especially for younger users; a high learning curve; failure to provide an intuitive interface; failure to enhance and create learning enjoyment; failure to provide sufficient guidance and/or skill enhancing effects; and/or so forth.
What is needed is a system and method of instructing and displaying musical notation for a stringed instrument that solves one or more of the problems described herein and/or one or more problems that may come to the attention of one skilled in the art upon becoming familiar with this specification.